We investigate shear thickening and jamming within the framework of a family of spatially homogeneous, scalar rheological models. These are based on the `soft glassy rheology model of Sollich et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 78, 2020 (1997)], but with an effective temperature x that is a decreasing function of either the global stress sigma or the local strain l. For appropiate x=x(sigma), it is shown that the flow curves include a region of negative slope, around which the stress exhibits hysteresis under a cyclically varying imposed strain rate gd. A subclass of these x(sigma) have flow curves that touch the gd=0 axis for a finite range of stresses; imposing a stress from this range {em jams} the system, in the sense that the strain gamma creeps only logarithmically with time t, gamma(t)simln t. These same systems may produce a finite asymptotic yield stress under an imposed strain, in a manner that depends on the entire stress history of the sample, a phenomenon we refer to as history--dependent jamming. In contrast, when x=x(l) the flow curves are always monotonic, but we show that some x(l) generate an oscillatory strain response for a range of steady imposed stresses. Similar spontaneous oscillations are observed in a simplified model with fewer degrees of freedom. We discuss this result in relation to the temporal instabilities observed in rheological experiments and stick--slip behaviour found in other contexts, and comment on the possible relationship with `delay differential equations that are known to produce oscillations and chaos.
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